The Colorful Cabins
by melancholyallie
Summary: True story!


Can one's aura have a color? I would be blue, hands down. What about hue?

The Colorful Cabins. That's what we're most commonly known as. There are six. Each one its own color. Five hours from my home, there is another home: one where the natives utter an idiosyncratic questionand stereotypes are taken way too far (which we all tend to do, eh?)

Batchawana Bay, Ontario, Canada is where I have spent several weeks of every summer since I was born. Don't be fooled by those stereotypes! We have a (slightly, if not optimistic) warmer sliver of Lake Superior, a picturesque sandy beach, and temperatures up to 30 degrees Celsius.

It was Father's Day and my father was not there. That was okay, though, because I was going to stay with my grandparents for an additional week. All who remained was; my uncle John and his daughters, Sarah and Lydia, our cousin Rosie, and my great aunt and uncle.

The gardening magazine was six years old. I'll never ask why it still hung around that already cluttered cabin. I suppose that was the allure of summer getaways: you could leave things behind, and when you came back, they were faithfully dog-eared and anxious for their glossy pages to be flipped through. And besides, _English Gardening_ was timeless.

Half the magazine was folded back, sitting in the center of the wooden table in my great aunt's eclectic cabin.

"Isn't it absolutely _darling_?" she giggled as she clunked around in the small kitchen, struggling to get dinner started. "I told your Poppie I want it right in the middle of the backyard."

They've hatched a diabolical plan. God help us.

I pulled the magazine over and saw the polished photo of a sophisticated looking tree with all of its branches cut off, only the stumps remaining, antique birdhouses taking the places of where branches should be. All the rage for modern gardens. Garden Art.

"I told John to go back in the bush and pick out a tree that we can use that has lots of thick branches!" Nonnie stopped to say this, wiping her hands on her gardening shirt. I wonder if she knew that she was wiping them where dirt was already present.

And "the bush" for those of you who don't know, is Canadian for woods. Also, milk can come in a bag. Want to visit yet?

The trailer was hooked to my uncle's truck that's as old as I am. All four of us girls-me, Rosie, Sarah, and Lydia-were squished into the moldy backseat that smelled like wet dog. My grandpa and Poppie followed behind us.

Ninety kilometers per hour, windows down, we honked the horn at our friend's restaurant down the road. _There go those Colorful Cabin people again, _they'd say.

Driving this same path we've followed a thousand times over was like sinking back into your favorite spot on a couch. Familiar, but not boring.

We parked on the side of the dirt road, twenty kilometers back. We weren't supposed to cut down a tree, (the Ontario Provincial Police are very dubious of us Americans) so we found one on the ground. Uncle John's chainsaw hummed to life and snapped us out of our trance. Now, anxious to take it back, all seven of us heaved and pulled that dead tree twenty feet to where our trailer was parked. Slug's slime was on the underbelly of the bulky bough, warning us not to take what rightfully belonged to the mossy earth of the Canadian bush. It took time, but all seven of us, on Father's Day, loaded that ridiculous chunk of a tree into our trailer. The top rested a good eight feet off the trailer door, tall and proud.

When we pulled into our yard, I saw my grandma and Nonnie on the back porch; two queens sitting in their retro lawn chair thrones, sipping their wine; red for Nonnie, white for Mimi. The sun caught the crystal and it glistened, like royal jewels.

"Did you get it?" Nonnie shrieked, her voice rising above the traffic from Highway 17.

A chorus of "yeah's" and "you should see it" were the obnoxious and loud responses from our open windows. My uncle stylishly backed the truck in to prepare for the unloading; a parade for the lovely queens.

Lydia and Rosie, the shortest, went right under the tree, ready to catch the gate once it fell. Uncle John and Poppie were standing behind the girls, ready to hold the tree up once the gate fell. My grandpa and I were up in the trailer, holding the tree steady for when the gate fell. Sarah, on the cue, was going to let the gate fall. All set? You bet.

"Go," she said.

The gate fell. Maybe it was a trick of the wind, or maybe the sun was in someone's eyes, or maybe the tree was just ready to be in the ground again, but we were _not _set. You bet.

Poppie crumpled to his knees in the grass, a little boy in the body of an old man.

_Stop!_ Someone shouted. We all froze. The tree was going to have to wait a little longer.

"Dad! Are you okay?" Uncle John asked, stepping beside him.

Poppie looked up. The lines of his face twisted into a look of sheer disgust. He opened his mouth, prepared to speak.

His language was as colorful as the cabins themselves.

Yep. He was okay.

Everyone helped him to his feet, colors streaming.

"Why are you laughing?" he barked at us girls. "I see _stars_ for Chrissakes!"

Of course, we weren't laughing at _him_. We were laughing at the situation (Father's Day, the fact that it was three in the afternoon and Nonnie and Mimi were already enjoying their wine.)

Every time he told his story it became more and more intense and filled with detail that wasn't there before. _I saw stars! The bump looked like another head; it could wear a baseball hat! You all tried to kill me! I thought I was _dying_. _A melodramatic response was what helped ease the fright. Our family's hue is not just one: it is many. We are each our own color until we come together, we are a rainbow. Happy to be together in the sky, even if it's only for a short amount of time. We overcome situations with laughter, a gift brought upon us thanks to those Colorful Cabins.


End file.
